WILL: No. I mean, if there is anything, it is just a cultural thing. When I was younger there was so much divisiveness, you just adapted your preferences.

SARA: Yeah, I know. But that is not 'it', is it?

WILL: What do you mean?

SARA: I ~mean~ so many times we have started getting close, and I feel you pull back. I can sense it. It has nothing to do with my skin color. It does, I think, but it is also something deeper.

WILL: I don't mean to.

SARA: It is like you are afraid of something, not repelled.

(pause)

WILL: Maybe sometimes I feel that the subtleties of what I am experiencing might not be enough.

SARA: Subtleties. Is that it? You think that they will be lost on me?

WILL: Not that you cannot understand them. Me. You are the most insightful person I have ever known. I just...

SARA: You think because I kid around alot and am loud and outgoing that I cannot be something else too? That we cannot have something special

WILL: When we are around others you seem to be happier, more fulfilled.

SARA: By 'others', you mean Raymond don't you? Look, if I wanted to be with Raymond, or anybody else, I would be. I want to be with you, even though you can be really annoying sometimes.

clouds have returned,
color shifting the landscape to emerald green.
muting footsteps and voices.
a final pause before summer's madness.

Mary removed the ring from her finger. She was alone in the dining room. Everyone else, including her fiancé Paul, were in the kitchen. She could hear the happy sounds of the small party resonating down the hall as she stood by the table. 

"Aren't they supposed to be golden brown before you take them out of the oven?" she heard Paul laughingly say to one of the others in the kitchen.

This voice -- recently so close, so close that the tender masculine tones seemed to originate within her own body. This voice that had completed her, had made her feel whole. She flushed.

Mary placed the ring on the dining room table, carefully guiding the fall of the ring with two fingers so that it made no sound as it touched down on the varnish surface. She place her hand tenderly over the warm metal for a moment. The ring, only two months in her possession, already held a frightening eternity of binding memories.

Again from the kitchen,  "No, you try them, you are the brave one." Laughter.

This was the committing thrust -- the finality that she needed. As she withdrew her hand, the ring gave a final shudder before it came to rest.

"What will I say if Paul comes back into the room?" she thought, mentally softening and controlling her pace towards the front door.

thought there was a relentless ogre
lurking in the overgrown back garden.
turned out to be a few snails
and a lost garden spade.

the teacher took me through the darkness.
i assumed i would be shown a path around.

just when i felt i could not stand the shadows another moment,
i fell through the a thin membrane -- into the beautiful sunshine.
warm and welcoming.

if i had been escorted around,
i would have never realized how thin is the veil
between darkness and light